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Moving back to the US after living abroad I was used to month long holidays. I applied to a few companies and tried to negotiate 5 weeks PTO. They wouldn't budge. Then 4 weeks. Still no. I offered to drop my salary in exchange for vacation. Still no. I asked HR why everything else was negotiable except PTO and they told me I would have more time off then people who've been there for 7+ years.
This was my first clue that there was a lot of momentum to keep you dependent on your employer and it doesn't stop with a paycheck. 10-12 days per year really restricts your mobility. Instead of backpacking through SE Asia for a month I basically used that time for Thanksgiving and/or Christmas.
BTW, having 3 days off means you can sprinkle on additional vacation time throughout the year. I'm not surprised Gen-Z would negotiate less vacation time if they could use it more effectively.
I'm Australian but have lived in Europe for a long time. When I begin to consider moving back, one of the things that puts me off is that 4 weeks is pretty much universal in Australia, plus in Australia I think it's pretty standard to have a fixed number of days you're allowed to be sick. I'm too used to having 6 weeks holidays and essentially unlimited sick leave (as long as it's legitimately required).
It's a more grown-up arrangement where businesses realise that regular time off (and as much time as you need if ill) increases happiness and therefore productivity.
I still miss the food at home, though.
> Moving back to the US after living abroad I was used to month long holidays. I applied to a few companies and tried to negotiate 5 weeks PTO. They wouldn't budge. Then 4 weeks. Still no. I offered to drop my salary in exchange for vacation. Still no. I asked HR why everything else was negotiable except PTO and they told me I would have more time off then people who've been there for 7+ years.
One of the reasons I work in the education sector is the generous (compared to startups / most tech companies, anyway) PTO.
We get all of the big holidays off (I think 12) and we have 2-4 weeks of vacation (depending on length of employment) and we have two weeks of paid medical leave (which accumulates, so after the first couple of years you have massive amounts banked) and paid maternity/paternity.
Mine isn't the only employer like this, there are plenty of others, it's not hard to find one. The key to look for is "work life balance." Government jobs, non-profits, education, these sorts of areas - they know they can't compete with tech company salaries but can make up for it in other ways. PTO is only a part of that.
It's not quite the 4 day a week dream job, but there are options available if you look. And as a bonus, you might find yourself more aligned with the mission of the organization than you would at a for-profit tech company.
I don't know about the US but in the Bay Area PTO hasn't been negotiable for about seven years. It's all "unlimited" now and so there are no official numbers to compare anymore.
The good news is that in large publicly traded companies people routinely fly back to India for a month so 4-week vacations are a thing if you are good at leetcode.
> They wouldn't budge.
I don't know if this is a problem specific to PTO. In general, after 20+ years of working, I've found US employers to be pretty inflexible on all terms/aspects of your working life besides compensation. They may (or often may not) be willing to negotiate pay, but will almost never budge when it comes to:
- Vacation / PTO
- Unpaid leave
- Health benefits
- Financial benefits like 401(k) or life insurance
- IP ownership
- Moonlighting or second jobs
- Schedule flexibility
- Paid training
- Company equipment
These things tend to be "take it or leave it--we won't accept changes to our boilerplate agreement!"
This is interesting.
In the US, I have found that what HR will tell you is different than what your hiring manager will enforce.
My hiring managers were often much more permissive and allowed 4 day work weeks and “unlimited” time off provided it was not detrimental to the team. This also meant that when there was a legitimate emergency; they expected you to assist.
I have heard many horror stories but have been luck not to experience most of them at this point in my career.
This is the one thing I really hate about American work culture. It really is pervasive throughout the economy, capitalism here optimizes for money over happiness and there just aren’t many companies that are willing to release their grip on you. My employer is now trying to transition to three days a week in the office and the reasoning is totally capitalistic even though it will most likely reduce overall happiness, they also will not approve a month off PTO even though it’s apparently unlimited, the reasoning was basically “we don’t work that way”.
So many things are wrong with American work culture and there’s nothing most people can do about it.
Asking for more pay with their standard PTO and as-needed UTO (Unpaid Time Off) might have been more successful.
Young people don't want to work hard because there's little incentive.
No matter how hard you work, unless you're in the top 5%, you're far priced out of most places most people want to live.
You can afford everything comfortably beside housing & health care (which you don't need much of when you're young) on a relatively low wage in the US.
So you've pretty much given up on housing. What's the point in working hard?
My theory is that compared to people in the 60s say, there are more things to do with your free time now, to the point where they are sometimes in conflict.
Before you’d get home and all you could do was have a beer and maybe watch tv, listen to the radio, read a book. Now we are so connected to so many things, and we know about all the activities possible around us through social media, that work is in the way. Work would define life, now it’s just something to pay the bills.
Sure, not universal, people still have professional goals, I want to change careers, I want to finish that project at work because I think it’s interesting and would benefit people, but I would not get in the way of working 4x8 instead of 5x8 for that.
I want to play games, learn about AI, 3D printing, CAD, mountain bike, go to trivia, travel to Thailand, travel to Europe, see family across the globe, get more flexible, build muscle, etc etc etc. None of them are at work.
It's not for everybody, but if you can find a way to not play the rigged game, you can get ahead.
I moved from a high cost of living city in North America to Latin America. I bought a two floor penthouse overlooking the ocean for less than the price of a two bedroom apartment back where I came from. My mortgage is -$2000 / month. That's right, negative $2000 because I save the full mortgage payment plus an extra $2000 on taxes each month, completely legally and above board.
Now not everything is sunshine and roses (well there is a lot of both, but you know what I mean). The price is I have to work remotely, I had to learn a new language, and Amazon delivery is more like two weeks than 2 days and the shipping is not free. There are definitely things that I miss, but nothing compared to what I gain.
Damn, I can't even afford healthcare at my current wage in digital marketing. The plans I've found would take up about 10% of my yearly income and I'm late-20's, healthy, no pre-existing, non-smoker, etc.
Even with that, the pay is barely enough to qualify me for my apartment, which is artificially low in rent since I moved in during peak COVID and have had low rent increases.
Probably the same as it's ever been. Out of three random employees, you have one who's just going through the motions, one who's working hard, and one who's actively hostile. Which one gets the money when review time rolls around?
That, and what's the long term strategy? Do they turn 30 and flip from working part time at Pizza Hut to a professional salaried career? Good luck getting an interview with that CV.
I'm not saying it's an ideal situation to be faced with, but tuning out is just going to make it worse.
Exactly why bother participating when the whole thing is rigged against you. May as well try and claw some of your life back.
As someone who worked very hard for 10y and was paid in some top percentile, the incentives still ran out.
I'm bored of the meaningless high paid work, single and likely socially stunted and emotionally blunted from workaholism. But at least I can buy a house where none of my loved ones can, and who will eventually be priced out of renting even basement apts nearby.
maybe young people don't want to work hard because history has proven time and time again that "working hard" doesn't make you happy, it's actually the opposite and they have now come to realize that balance is key?
Why is wanting an improved work life balance (and thus improving things like health (mental/physical) and family and happiness) seen as not wanting to “work hard”?
Gone are the days of 10x emps, power badasses doing laundry and eating 3 meals a day on campus. It never was healthy for the emps anyway - it only ever benefits the owners.
Unless you own, the only incentive is to work as hard as you are paid for as we all exchange labor and limited lifetimes for wages that ensure someone else’s profit still meets its owners set marks.
Peasants under Feudalism had zero hope progressing.
Upward mobility is probably something every generation has complained about throughout history. Economic nihilism isn’t the answer.
Our future generations count on us to improve whatever cards we’re dealt
> No matter how hard you work, unless you're in the top 5%, you're far priced out of most places most people want to live.
That's not even true. I have a large set of anecdata, with people below median income buying houses, and people in the 5% being afraid to buy a house (too risk averse to the point of being detrimental).
If owning a house is your priority, you will make it work. My conclusion is that a large set of people just don't have the basic skills to maintain a house, or simply don't want that responsibility, despite being able to afford it.
> So you've pretty much given up on housing. What's the point in working hard?
What's your plan for when you're 50, broke and almost unemployable due to ageism? Who's going to rent to you and how will you afford it? Are you going to be a squatter? Do you plan to wait until your parents die and live off the inheritance?
That's cool if you don't have answers to those questions when you're 22-25, but what about 35+, like most millennials now are?
To be clear - you can read the crystal ball much like the whole generation in terms of whats going to happen in the future? I'm glad everyone knows how the future is written, I for one don't know and am quite curious.
As someone who considers themselves to be pretty motivated and entrepreneurial, I look around and see very little opportunity. Businesses that actually make money trade at all time high multiples while funding for a new business is non existent. Want to buy a business? Good luck, high interest rates squeeze margins to nothing.
The financialization of housing means you’re competing with massive hedge funds when you want to buy a home or invest in real estate.
Incredible government defect spending ensures more inflation which will outpace salary increases.
This is how I’ve heard the late 70s/early 80s as being described: general malaise.
I keep hearing this but home ownership percentage is comparable to past generations when you actually look at the data.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N
Also gen z has surpassed millennials and genx in home ownership (with comparable timing).
""In 2022, 30% of 25-year-olds owned a home. At the same age 28% of millennials, and 27% of Gen Xers owned homes, according to real estate brokerage, Redfin.""
https://www.marketplace.org/2023/09/14/how-are-gen-zers-buyi...
Im more inclined to believe the lazy mentality is from lifestyle and cultural stemming. Its cool to not care or try. And according to instagram if you're not a millionaire by age 25 then you're a loser. So why even try?
That being said I see nothing wrong with a 4 day work week.
Add in a certain amount of awareness that more consumption as in bigger car, more square feet and shorter product replacement cycles isn't just good.
Sure, few people would actively reject an opportunity to have a high footprint life, but the relative attractivity between footprint maximization and having other priorities in life certainly aren't the same as they used to be in the days of infinite growth illusions.
The effect you describe is much stronger I think, but they are not competing, they complement each other.
This is precisely why fascism is on the rise, and I’m not being hyperbolic
It’s reminiscent of the lead up to the drug war that was coinciding with the antiwar movement
Young people looked around and said this society is not working for us, and instead of creating a new society that actually takes care of people, people voted for Nixon and doubled down on maximum alienation capitalism
As someone living in a low cost of living area (happily) and working in an unsexy but profitable tech job that was basically begging to hire anyone with a degree, I really dont understand this rhetoric.
The Ants and the Grasshopper - Aesop
So you're not going to be able to live where most people want to live. That's far different from having no house.
"Giving up on housing" is not the right answer. "Start small and work your way up", like most of us did.
See, when you hit 20, you're looking at your parents, and you're seeing them when they're 45 or 50. You're not seeing them when they were 20. You expect that you're going to be able to live like they do at 50, not like they did when they were 20. That's not realistic.
But the answer isn't to give up. The answer is to keep working on it, over decades, instead of expecting it to be handed to you on day one.
In my experience working at a 4DWW company I saw the opposite.
The happiest were the oldest, most established workers, because they had already ticked off all so many life goals, had a house, a dog, kids, etc and so less money and more time was great.
In contrast the youngest workers had no stable housing, and wanted more money more than they wanted time, because they wanted an ability to buy themselves some of those lifestyle things the older workers already had (read: stable housing).
In practice the young workers that needed more money simply used the other day for another job, which was their right.
This was in an environment with a dysfunctional unaffordable housing market, so maybe this all just shows how important affordable housing is and how it eventually starts to trumps all other issues.
These companies are so rare, why wouldn't the younger workers just go find a job with higher pay and less time off? It's not like they're being forced to work at a 4-Day Work Week company... They're kind of unicorns to find in the first place.
I've seen some strange criticisms after a friend of mine transitioned to a 4-day week. Like whether he has any ambitions, doesn't want to work etc. He is a very committed, good programmer really kinda keeping the company running. I bet he gets more stuff done in 4 days than others in 5. But he has a very active private, social life. He goes a lot on vacations, has hobbies or is just actively enjoying life. He's also in europe so quite a bit of vacation.
Programmers usually have a comfortable salary, even with 80% you're still above average and have a lot of disposable income. Maybe a smaller apartment but who cares.
He has such an enormous quality of life that I kinda suspect that all the ones got it wrong. In the end life is not about grinding for the man, it's just a means to an end. They should justify themselves, not him. It's also really stupid considering how committed he is, he just has a rich life besides work. I see others just working inefficiently, trying to dodge responsibility and being kinda lazy. But he get's criticised.
I had a 4 day workweek for a period of time after I got diagnosed with ADHD in a ripe age. Eventually bumped it back up to 5 days because it paid me 1/5 more. My efficiency, however, is around the same, or even slightly lower, than it was when I was working 4 days. Which isn't low enough to cause me any issues, but it's also sort of silly that I get paid more for the same/less solely due to spending more hours in the office and not for the work I'm actually performing. This isn't because I'm quiet quitting or whatever trend there is hip with the anti-work crowd, it's simply because I'm more tired and I perform worse when I'm tired.
Here is one thing about 4 day week that opens eyes. If you are let's say 35 and hope to retire at 60, switching to a 4 day week could save you about 1,300 workdays—that's, roughly 3.5 years.
The 5-minute window where my funny 4 day week calculator will shine: https://okjob.io/4-day-week-calculator/
[…]
> Now it is true that the needs of human beings may seem to be insatiable. But they fall into two classes --those needs which are absolute in the sense that we feel them whatever the situation of our fellow human beings may be, and those which are relative in the sense that we feel them only if their satisfaction lifts us above, makes us feel superior to, our fellows. Needs of the second class, those which satisfy the desire for superiority, may indeed be insatiable; for the higher the general level, the higher still are they. But this is not so true of the absolute needs-a point may soon be reached, much sooner perhaps than we are all of us aware of, when these needs are satisfied in the sense that we prefer to devote our further energies to non-economic purposes.
[…]
> For many ages to come the old Adam will be so strong in us that everybody will need to do some work if he is to be contented. We shall do more things for ourselves than is usual with the rich to-day, only too glad to have small duties and tasks and routines. But beyond this, we shall endeavour to spread the bread thin on the butter-to make what work there is still to be done to be as widely shared as possible. Three-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week may put off the problem for a great while. For three hours a day is quite enough to satisfy the old Adam in most of us!
* John Maynard Keynes, Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren (1930)
* http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf
An essay putting forward / hypothesizing four reasons on why the above did not happen (We haven't spread the wealth around enough; People actually love working; There's no limit to human desires; Leisure is expensive):
* https://www.vox.com/2014/11/20/7254877/keynes-work-leisure
This is a huge trend in Europe. A sizable portion of people I know are simply deciding to work as little as possible, even if that means getting paid less. The general perception is that there is no point in saving for a house or for retirement, and many perceive the career ladder game to be a fool's errand. So they just want to get enough money to live at present.
If there's one thing that has truly happened with the pandemic, it's that it has exposed the psychopathy of grinding in corporations, and made people more aware of the value of their own lives. Thus, leading to large masses of people not caring about the corporate and management nonsense.
For folks who are concerned about younglings not working hard enough or China will take over or some other boomer ideology, this is even happening among youth in developing countries.
Solution: People want to be treated with respect and dignity. That's it. As long as companies treat people as fungible factory workers, companies will be in a constant churn of employees - especially as the newer generations are smaller in size.
Degrowth ironically growing in popularity.
One way to think about it is that you’re getting a 20% pay bump. It’s not 1:1 exactly but I’m willing to bet a lot of people would trade certain perks for a 20% bump. But it’s a net loss for society to remove these perks. Being young means you don’t need these perks. You don’t give a damn about healthcare, child care, or life insurance. But you most likely will in a decade and getting it back these perks would be nearly impossible after you trade short terms gains for long term loss.
I took a $50k job in my late 20s just for full remote with no calls/meetings, just Github issues and a chat app for synchronization.
I felt pathetic accepting the offer especially after my counteroffer was rejected (imagine your bluff failing here, lmao), but I remembered sitting in meetings for a higher paying job fantasizing about how I'd give half my salary away just to have no meetings and living on a beach surfing in the mornings. And that's what I did.
I hope the four day workweek is an actual four day workweek (I.e. 32 hr weeks) and not 10x4's. Those are worse.
I give myself a fixed number of "hands on keyboard" hours that I need to meet each week and track my time to the second. If I hit my number in four days, hey, three day weekend. If I don't hit it by Friday, I'm working Saturday. I love it. I want to keep doing this for as long as I can.
Should be fighting for a 3 day work week by now, not a 4.
Give us Wednesday off, not Friday.
Then we can rest between 2-day work spurts.
I would sacrifice >20% of my pay for a 4-day work week.
I negociated a 4-day workweek for my first job when I was 23.
25 years later, I wouldn't do it. I'm worried for my retirement, I don't think I'll have enough saving to live in a safe and convenient place, and have access to good healthcare. This is the type of things you don't think of when you just graduate and are used to the student worklife.
Source for the article:
“Younger workers want a 4-day workweek — and some would give up remote work or higher pay for it” https://www.bankrate.com/personal-finance/younger-workers-wa...
> Close to 8 in 10 Gen X and baby boomer workers (or 78 percent for those between the ages of 43 and 77 combined) support a four-day workweek.
> But younger workers indicate they’re willing to go to greater lengths for the schedule, and it sets them apart. More than 9 in 10 of Gen Z and millennial workers who prefer a four-day work week (or 92 percent) would still be willing to work that schedule if it meant giving something up, versus 86 percent of Gen X and baby boomers.
> The steps those younger workers say they would be willing to take include working longer hours (48 percent), changing jobs or companies (35 percent) and coming into the office or working fully in person (33 percent) to have three days off a week. Some would even be willing to take less vacation time (20 percent), accept a pay cut (13 percent) or take a step back in their careers (12 percent) for it.
Old people will also!
Older people as well. :)
If ppl got the same quality of life our grandparents and maybe some parents got, I'm sure this wouldn't be a topic.
If they (or you, or anyone) want a 4 day work week, then why not pick a profession that allows it? Most healthcare related fields work in 12 hour shifts, so working 3-4 days a week is the normal standard.
Not every professional job is an office job 9-5.